Personally I’ve always appreciated the emphasis on Populi versus Dei especially considering tumultuous, fractious and socialist history of Europe. But what it expresses best is the materialistic notion that perfection, i.e. God, is possible from the voice of the people and that truth resides in each and everyone of us. So this is my food for thoughts blog article about software technology. If you found article on this blog useful, click on any ad so that I can have a drink on you.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

StereoTracer is designed for creating 3D image out of one 2D image by means of «depth-map». The depth-map (disparity image or Z-image) serves to convert a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional one. In the depth-map the gray color gradation shows each pixel's distance from the viewer. The lighter area in the depth-map correspond to the areas nearer to the viewer, the darker ones correspond to more distant areas.

A «depth-map» can be created from source one 2D image or stereopair automatically in StereoTracer. "How to" is available here.

StereoTracer generates a number of images which all have a slightly different viewing angle. This process models shooting of a scene from different points across the horizontal line. Resultant series of images is used for creating 3D (stereo) image by method of anaglyph encoding or making multi-view 3D lenticular picture in Triaxes 3DMasterKit or other lenticular generating application. Also a series of frames can be exported into a movie clip (AVI or animated GIF) and used for presentation purposes.

3.Now open the HelloWebView.java file. At the top of the class, declare a WebView object:

WebView mWebView;

Then use the following code for the onCreate() method:

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); mWebView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview); mWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true); mWebView.loadUrl("http://www.thomasyounsi.com");}This initializes the member WebView with the one from the Activity layout; requests a WebSettings object with getSettings(); and enables JavaScript for the WebView with setJavaScriptEnabled(boolean). Finally, an initial web page is loaded with loadUrl(String).

4.Because this application needs access to the Internet, you need to add the appropriate permissions to the Android manifest file. Open the AndroidManifest.xml file and add the following as a child of the element:

What is very powerful with WebView is that you can use a two way communication between the content which is display in the web view and the Java application. This can be accomplished by using JavaScript running inside the WebView calling out Java code to get the updated fragment for the HTML div bloc that require to be use to update the content running inside the view. This means you can use HTML div to layout your content and expand/collapse a div based on user action. The content can come from a remote database, a web service or as a JSON Object.

Microsoft Surface represents a new category of computing. With capabilities like direct interaction, multi-touch, multi-user, and object recognition, Microsoft Surface computing is a unique and cutting edge platform for application development.

The Microsoft Surface platform goes beyond the capabilities of its core operating system foundation running Windows Vista SP1, yet it keeps the development process simple. The Microsoft Surface SDK 1.0 SP1 provides all the controls a developer needs to create innovative experiences on Microsoft Surface. And with the new capabilities that come with Service Pack 1, application development is easier than ever with new WPF controls and API enhancements that give developers more control, flexibility, and efficiency in creating applications.

Plus, in order to enable a broad developer audience, Microsoft Surface is compatible with familiar programs and tools developers use today, such as:

It would be nice to see microsoft coming with a small tablet "surface capable" 1280x720 P resolution where people could put there camera or phone in place on top of the tablet running an application in "surface application mode" to exchange and share contents (picture/music/video).

A commercial Microsoft Surface unit is $12,500 (unit only), whereas a developer Microsoft Surface unit costs $15,000 and includes a developer unit, five seats and support. However, Microsoft said it expects prices to drop enough to make consumer versions feasible in 2010. Microsoft would have to come with a price 20x lower than the actual Microsoft Surface unit to compete with the iPad. I think it is time to come up with a product...